


A God's awkward slip-up

by JTWLostEchoLogs (QueerZubat)



Series: Brokenverse AU (BLTW drabbles) [3]
Category: Borderlands (Video Games)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Dorks, Family Feels, Father-Son Relationship, Gen, Generic Engineering, Kinda Found Family, Not Canon Compliant, Swearing, Troy didn't realize he kinda sees JT as a father figure, and JT didn't expect that too
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-08
Updated: 2020-12-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 04:00:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,289
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27958022
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueerZubat/pseuds/JTWLostEchoLogs
Summary: Sometimes, unknowingly, you slip out of your well built God Persona with someone you didn't know you considered close to you.Or: that time where the God King Troy reverted back to the real Troy, awkwardness ensues.
Relationships: Troy Calypso & Original Character
Series: Brokenverse AU (BLTW drabbles) [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2047460
Kudos: 2





	A God's awkward slip-up

**Author's Note:**

> I had this scene in my mind for long time when I first started working on the fanfiction, so I decided to write it down.  
> To be honest, I'm not sure if I'll include it in the story because I need to see if everything will follow the plot I have jotted down or if everything will take a different route.

It was a day that JT decided to spend in the quietness of his quarters, not having the ideal mood to deal with all the "Children of the Vault" bullshit and chaos. Sometimes he wondered if maybe it was better if Troy - no, the "God King" how he called himself - just had killed him instead of making him join that fucking group of weirdos that worship him and his sister. **  
**

Surely things had really changed after all those years… except the part of being stuck following the orders of some sort of egomaniac.

Old tunes echoed inside Jamison’s quarters, which consisted of an ample room that from a workshop slowly faded into a more or less messy living space with a kitchen and on a side the doors leading to the bedroom and the bathroom.

Part of Jamison’s bi-colored hair was tied up into a small ponytail so his face was freed and his already limited field of view wouldn’t be hindered by loose locks, while he was busy tinkering at his work table.

The man was sitting on an high stool, lit cigarette stuck between his lips while his good eye was looking at a robotic arm that was fixing… while the owner of that robotic arm was sitting with its back against the wall near the table: a rusty and old small Hyperion Loader that JT had rebuilt after finding it in a junkyard a couple of months earlier. The wee Loader was still not working, was missing many parts, and still needed a lot of other repairings… also, some parts needed to be built back from scratch if nothing that could be repurposed was found. But Jay didn’t care about it: he only needed something to keep himself busy and to keep his mind focused on something else in the hopes to not fall victim to some flashback or – worse – those awful and unsettling trances.

He mumbled something to himself while taking apart the metal casing that covered some of the mechanisms of the little Loader’s arm: he needed to redo all the wirings because the rust had corroded them too much to be still usable.

JT rose from the stool and in a sort of automatic motion walked to the metal rack to search into the boxes of spare parts if he had some cables that could be good enough to be used for something that – one day hopefully – would become a working robot. He rummaged into a couple of boxes before finding what he needed and also grabbed the roll of duct tape: the casings were too rusty to be put back together with screws and soldering them would mean having to cut them apart if it needed more fixing in the future. The duct tape was a good compromise.

Again he plopped onto his stool at the work table and went back to removing all the old wires from the robotic arm, almost savouring the calmness in his workshop/house and how his mind was finally quiet while working.

Even if he was partially deaf because of his past incident, his place was quiet enough – even with the music tunes in the background – to let him notice some heavy steps getting near the door of his quarters. But Jay kept his focus on the repairings: by then, he was well able to recognize Troy’s signature heavy – almost stomping – steps. Part of JT’s mind wondered what the “God King” wanted from him, while the other part was disappointed by the incoming interruption.

God King Troy slammed the door open and stormed into JT’s workshop, not even giving him more than a glance – and the man didn’t seem to even acknowledge his presence – while he kept walking towards the metal shelvings where the man kept all his tools and spare parts. The heavy and bulky mechanical arm was kept low, swaying slightly at the tall siren’s movements.

Without asking for permission – he is the God King, he doesn’t need to ask for permission from his underlings and his followers – Troy started checking the tools and the storing boxes on the shelves, digging around in search of something.

A couple of small cardboard boxes thrown to the floor and some grunts and swears later, still searching between the spare parts, the tall guy spoke.

«I can’t find my spare hex wrench and I need it now, I don’t want to lose parts of my fuckin’ arm» he grunted shoving back a small box onto a shelf «Where the fuck do you keep your hex wrenches, dad?».

Few long instants were needed for his brain to register what he had said but when Troy did, he stopped rummaging and froze on the spot.

_What the fuck?_ What the fuck he just said? Jay already knew his “real self” and he couldn’t really make him avoid a certain level of confidence between them, at least in private. And sometimes it felt nice being able to set aside the “God King Persona” with someone. But accidentally calling him “ _dad_ ” was slipping into a dangerous slippery slope and lowering too much his defences.

_“Why the hell I called him like that?! He’s not my fucking father. Pops’ a fucking bastard that considers me a freak and Ty a monster! And we left him to rot in Nekrotafeyo!”_ Troy cursed himself, almost horrified for his unintentional slip-up.

He didn’t move and didn’t say anything else, trying to calm down and at the same time he hoped that JT’s hearing was bad enough to not make him notice his screwing up.

The clanging of falling metal pliers and heavy coughing from Jay’s direction was what finally made Troy slowly turn towards the man… still mentally crossing his fingers hoping to not having been heard.

But JT heard him. The younger man was rummaging around the shelves on the good ear’s side of the room.

He froze too, he hoped too to have heard wrong.

He didn’t even notice to have held his breath until the cigarette’s smoke in his lungs started burning making Jay break into a coughing fit that caught him by surprise, making him lose his grip on his pliers that fell onto the floor, clanging.

_“Oh, damn.”_

Jamison needed a couple of minutes to recover from the coughing and threw a quick glance towards the direction where he supposed that Troy was. He was looking at him now. For a moment, Jay had the impression that the “God King” was trying to hide the awkwardness of the moment too.

The engineer cleared his throat, dumped the rest of the cigarette inside an empty beer can on the table, and got up from the stool, turning in Troy’s direction.

«Uhh...searching randomly like that won’t make you find anything, son.» said – finally – trying to appear chill over the other’s slip-up, walking towards a shelf mounted on the wall near the work table and taking from it a red metal toolbox.

«For the arm you said? What was the one you lost?» added, opening the toolbox to search for the item the other asked for.

Jay’s question was met with a long silence from Troy’s side, the God King still trying to get over the panic caused by his screwing up big time and trying to get back into his persona.

«… the 9/64” one» croaked Troy after that silence.

JT nodded, took the hex wrench from the toolbox that then set back on the shelf again. Then he walked towards Troy, handing him the tool he asked for.

«Do not lose it, kiddo.» added Jay patting his prosthetic hand on Troy’s left shoulder «Or next time you’ll barge in and make a mess, I’ll make you tidy up everything. Okay?»


End file.
